Class: Internal Factors

Question 1

1. (Labelling) What is labelling?

Answer 1

Teachers passing on judgement on their students (e.g. bright, troublemaker).

Question 2

What did Becker find in secondary schools about how teachers label students?

Answer 2

Becker interviewed 60 teachers and found that teachers stereotype students based on work, conduct and appearance.

Question 3

What did Keddie find about labelling when it comes to teachers distributing knowledge to students?

Answer 3

• Keddie (1971) - unequal access to classroom knowledge (status as knowledge).
• ‘High status knowledge’ and ‘low status knowledge’. Teachers don’t distribute knowledge evenly.

Question 4

2. (SFP) What is the Self Fulfilling Prophecy?

Answer 4

• Fulfilling the ‘prophecy’ that an individual has set for you.
• E.g. if a teacher sees and treats a pupil as a bright student, they are likely to be bright and succeed academically.

Question 5

How many stages are there of labelling in education?

Answer 5

3

Question 6

What are the 3 stages?

Answer 6

• Stage 1: Labels pupil + makes predictions.
• Stage 2: Teacher interacts with pupil based on label.
• Stage 3: Pupil internalises the label and the teacher’s expectations (‘fulfils’ the original ‘prophecy’.

Question 7

What did Rosenthal and Jacobson do to research the self fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 7

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) - Teacher’s expectations and the Self Fulfilling Prophecy: Pygmalion in the classroom experiment.

Question 8

What was the Pygmalion in the classroom experiment? - They had a new ability - a test to identify who would ‘spurt’ ahead.

Answer 8

• They had a new ability - a test to identify who would ‘spurt’ ahead.
• R+J randomly picked 20% of the students and lied (high ability) and later 47% of these pupils made significant progress, compared to the 53%.

Question 9

3. (Streaming) What is streaming?

Answer 9

Streaming is where children are placed in groups according to their general academic ability.

Question 10

What did Gillborn and Youdell make?

Answer 10

(2004) - Educational triage.

Question 11

What is the educational triage and how many sections/outcomes are there?

Answer 11

• The educational triage shows how important a student is.
• It had 3 sections/outcomes.

Question 12

What were the 3 sections/outcomes of the educational triage?

Answer 12

1. Those who will pass anyway.
2. Border line C / D pupils who are targeted for help.
3. Hopeless cases.

Question 13

4. (Pupil Subcultures) What are pupil subcultures and what are they often based on?

Answer 13

• School subcultures are smaller groups of students who share attitudes to the rules, values, and norms of school and form their behaviour accordingly.
• School subcultures are often based on gender, ethnicity, and social class.

Question 14

What is differentiation?

Answer 14

How teachers categorise from appearance, ability, etc.

Question 15

What is polarisation?

Answer 15

• Pupils responding to streaming by moving towards one of two opposite ‘poles’ or extremes.
• / The splitting of a society into two distinct groups that are different ends of a spectrum.
• For example, the rich and poor.

Question 16

What concepts did Colin Lacey develop?

Answer 16

(1970) Concepts of differentiation and polarisation to explain how pupil subcultures develop.

Question 17

What did Wills (1977) explain about ‘Resistant Anti-school Subcultures’? (What does it mean and how is it formed)

Answer 17

Formed by working class pupils that directly oppose values that the education system promotes.

Question 18

What are Pro-School Subcultures?

Answer 18

• Associated with the middle class.
• Positive.
• ‘Halos’ - ‘angel’ children.
• High expectations.

Question 19

What are Anti-School Subcultures?

Answer 19

• Associated with the working class.
• Negative.
• No ‘halos’.
• Low expectations.

Question 20

What does Wood suggest about dividing students into pro or anti school subcultures?

Answer 20

Doing this is too simplistic → wide range of adaptations.

Question 21

What is an evaluation?

Answer 21

• Interactionalist theories show the education system is not a neutral institution (unlike Cultural Deprivation theorists).

Question 22

What 3 points does the interactionalist theories explain?

Answer 22

• It explains how teacher-student relations have an impact on education.
• Can improve teaching methods (Wood (1983) → school can be improved by reducing stereotyping and labelling = reduce deviance in school).
• Doesn’t only deal with social background (can provide a detailed insight into the day-to-day life of educational institutions and show that educational attainment is not just based on external factors).